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Pep’s Man City approach
- Updated: November 1, 2016
As new chapters are added to Guillem Balague’s Pep Guardiola: Another Way of Winning biography, we look at an extract from Guardiola’s opening weeks at Manchester City following his move from Bayern Munich in the summer.
Sky Sports’ Spanish football expert Balague explores Pep’s work in the transfer market, his tactical approach to an underperforming City side, and why the job is the most difficult of his career.
You can purchase the updated Pep Guardiola: Another Way of Winning HERE
Pep Guardiola realised he was beginning the most difficult challenge of his career at Manchester City for many reasons: the league was more competitive than the German and Spanish ones, the team needed recycling, and the quality of the coaching in the Premier League had improved.
Manuel Pellegrini left an ageing squad, one of the oldest in the Premier League, and one not over-burdened with personality. The style, dynamic and work rate of the team had to improve dramatically. Also, City entered the transfer market a bit late, as Pep was mostly focusing on his job at Bayern, by which time there were few elite players available. Half of the new City players who joined the club would have done so even if Pep had decided to go on sabbatical, and the rest joined because Guardiola was going to be in charge, despite having other interesting offers.
The side he inherited, which could only finish fourth in a mediocre 2015 season for the big guns, was possibly the worst he had ever had to work with, if not in terms of quality, then certainly in terms of identity. City were not a defined team, their personality was blurred – a side that chose its style according to who they happened to be playing and a team whose work without the ball was very irregular. Barcelona and Bayern had a clear philosophy, while City had players who passed the ball well but played a game that was ultimately decided by individual talent, rather than collective work.
What would make the difference was the work done in training, and nobody would work harder than City’s new coaching staff. Guardiola was set to arrive with his ideas and bring with him a …
